Its head turns slowly, rattling, as the wind pulls loose wisps of hair across its skull. ‘Look at us both. Seekers of harmony. Architects of peace. Unafraid of our tools.’ The corpse’s jaw widens again, swings loose as a sickle. ‘Of course, the world is still adjusting to your gift.’ Something that might be a laugh scurries around its empty ribs. It watches Crowkisser step closer, a fish on a hook, her feet bare and blue in the sodden grass.
She runs a hand through her hair. So tired, even if she’s trying to hide it behind pulled back shoulders and an upthrust chin. Good. They’re so much easier when they’re tired.
‘All I want is peace,’ she says. ‘All I wanted was freedom.Realfreedom. From the gods. From all their whims.’
The gallowswatcher clicks as sympathetically as a corpse can.
‘Naturally,’ it coos, in its beetle-thick rasp. ‘All good rulers do.’
Her face clouds, ‘I’m not a ruler.’
Its dry cheeks stretch. ‘Are you not? What are you then, to the people in Astic, in Dryke, and Sedge? To all those sleeping babiesand careworn fathers? To your dark friend with the beautiful gun? What are you then?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m …’
It interrupts. ‘You are their ruler. In your own fashion, and through your own methods.’
Crowkisser nods, but the word hanging unsaid on her lips is not ruler. It’s mother.
The corpse smiles again, for that’s all its stripped jaw can do. ‘Are we asking for so much? We want to include all people in our union. A strong union. A safe union.’ Its voice drops to a hiss. ‘We want to keep them safe.’
She nods slightly at that, and its dead heart rejoices. Its voice rolls on, over the wet cliffs and down the darkened path. ‘My people were safe, Crowkisser. We had peace. We had as much freedom as was needed. Until Shroudweaver. Until your father. Until he came to feed the snakes among them. To fatten their restless hearts.’
She takes another step closer. Her hand lingers on the yellowed bone of the gallowswatcher’s hip, the ruin of its flank.
‘I know so little of the fall of the Empire. The rise of the Republic. He wouldn’t speak of it.’
A snarl curls its rotten lips. ‘None of them will. Twenty years of trying to scour my triumph from the face of the world and still they fear me.’ It pauses, and she wonders what secrets it just hid in the silence.
‘We can use that fear, you and I. We can use it to have our revenge.’
She taps the handle of the knife impatiently. ‘Well, I’m listening, but only one of us is getting soaked through out here. Make it quick.’ Her voice hardens. ‘Tell me what I need to know.’
It laughs again, lurching and wet as the rain slowly fills its open throat. ‘Very well. But understand this. I knew my people. I knew their every thought, so long as they stayed within my mountain, every whisper filtered down to my ears. And those that escaped, my loyal subjects brought to me like gifts. A trinity of advisers at my heel. Wiser and braver men I did not know.There were no snakes in my mountain, until Skinpainter came. Until they taught my people to hide dissent in their bodies. In their skin, and their pulses, tapping out messages on collarbones, on wrists, on arms. Hiding betrayal in the count of their breath, and the flicker of their eyelids.’
‘That’s clever,’ Crowkisser smiles.
‘Yes,’ the Emperor says. ‘Unfortunately clever. And Skinpainter was clever beyond that. Clever enough to call out to your father. To lure him into meeting my army at the city of the jewelled lips.’
Crowkisser’s mind races, searching the rumours and scraps of history she knows.
‘At Luss.’
‘Luss.’ The word falling from the corpse’s lips like a wet rock.
‘My greatest betrayal. My own people turned against me. Months of Skinpainter’s lies and promises. Bringing some of my best and most treasured into their vile embrace. Elevating rabble to the status of leaders. Secret promises of a better life tapped out on skin.’ Its voice drips venom. ‘Kinghammer. The Deadsingers. Belltoller. Traitors all. But Skinpainter the worst of them. A thief. A liar. A killer.’
‘You were outplayed,’ Crowkisser says, a faint smile on her lips. ‘You got lazy.’
The corpse’s eyes flare again, the green light hissing and spitting where it meets the falling rain. Its voice is bitter. ‘I have had twenty long years to learn my lesson, Crowkisser. That’s why I’ve come to you. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made. I don’t want your people to suffer like mine suffered.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘How kind of you.’
It snarls. ‘I also want Skinpainter to bleed. I want to see that ink-stained thief in pieces. I want to watch the meat fall from their bones.’
Crowkisser smiles slightly. ‘Now, that I can believe.’ She taps the hilt of her knife against the gallowswatcher’s leg. The corpse shudders in response.
‘We still haven’t got to how you help me win.’
